Monthly Archives: August 2018

One of my heroes is Gene Kranz who is famous as the Flight Director on the Apollo 13 mission to the Moon. As I am sure you are aware, Apollo 13 never landed on the Moon; it had to use the Moon’s gravity as a catapult to return to earth.   I remember this story, not from the brilliant movie starring Tom Hanks, but, watching the news as it unfolded.  I was very young but remember the drama of it all vividly.

There is doubts weather Gene said it as depicted in the movie in the heat of the battle. It is irrelevant really; it is still a brilliant statement.  In the film it, Gene uses it as a call to action to everyone working in the operations room to get everyone home. Of course, in a dynamic environment in the workplace, statements like this are excellent, it gets us to focus on the job at hand and a brilliant team motivator.

I also use this statement to reinforce that every mistake is a learning opportunity.  Remember this isn’t a cop-out statement that many people will think,

There are many reasons that you may look to use “off-the-shelf” training solutions, but it’s hugely important to be mindful of the dangers in comparison with the perceived advantages:

The training world is full of individuals and businesses that are more than willing to provide you with their take of a training package that sounds like it might fit you or your business needs.  The perceived advantages of this training could be:

1. It’s been written by a “Subject Matter Expert”.

2. It’s going to save you time and effort as the hard work has been done by someone else.

3. It's good to go as soon as you get it so you or your trainers can get to work delivering.

But, is it going to be what you need or a case of too good to be true?  You may have invested a lot of money into this, so it’s imperative to consider if it’s actually what is needed so here are some of the major considerations:

1. It’s likely to be have been written very generically and may not fit to the subject knowledge level

There are various types of coaching but the one I think I had the most significant lightbulb moment with was the relational coaching, I feel a huge and sometimes misunderstood area.

Most coaches when questioning the coachee think they have to get to a solution, not so. There does not need to be a result; coaching is not about you the coach offering a solution. It is about listening and thinking about what comes up, then asking permission to share what you have sensed, noticed or felt.  How many of us focus on the language used? We always have an instinct or a feeling about something. But then how many of us choose to share this? Sadly, not many of us, in fact very few do. Even with your closest friends, you may notice something and still choose not to share it. This is the area that may need a change with; the coachee may need to think about something they want to do differently about the core problem.

The place for this to happen is the coaching room, the safe environment that a coaching

When I am delivering management training I will be often asked about dealing with challenging and difficult behaviour.  This is a very common thing in the workplace, particularly with different types of personalities and people and the simple fact is that we can’t like or get on with everyone, I think this is perfectly normal.

However, as a manager, an issue can be when we don’t like someone we start to create a habit of looking for things when they have done something wrong.  Of course, if we don’t necessarily warm to someone, we may start to look for this, and as soon as they make a mistake w,e will be the first to tell them. If we are honest, I think we have all done this as some time, yes this includes you!

A great technique to use here is to start to change our way of thinking.  Change our way of thinking to begin to look when someone has done something right.  This is a simple but powerful way of changing our thoughts on their behaviour; looking for things they are doing

On one of my latest train the trainer courses, a lovely delegate called Lotta introduced me to one of the latest innovations in technology, the Samsung “Flip” (This is not an advertisement).  Having never heard of it and Lotta’s excellent description, I decided to investigate:

I love technology and can remember the excitement building in an old training establishment I worked in back in the early 2000’s when they said they were installing “Smart” boards.  With baited breath, we all couldn’t wait to try them, but within six months they quickly became boards screwed to a wall that no-one used.  It wasn’t because we didn’t like technology, it was just that the software was poor and they were very unreliable.  I’ve always been very sceptical since then when technology tries to fill tried and tested delivery methods but I’m still always open to something making me change my mind.  Step forward then, the Samsung “Flip” a 4K 55” screen that advertises itself as a creative digital flipchart.

We are fortunate at Target Training, we get to work with some brilliant people and recently we have been working with some aircrew from Qatar.  They are helicopter crewman and pilots who are involved in areas such as search and rescue operations.  The crew are thoroughly professional and are made up of two rear crew, a pilot and a captain.

It is the Captain I want to talk to you about today.  We will call the individual concerned, Captain Jazz because that’s what we have been calling him over the past two weeks.  What I have been so impressed with his Captain Jazz’s brilliant leadership style particularly his ability to lead by example.

The crew respect Captain Jazz that is evident to see, they listen to him and most of all, follow him. What is more apparent is how Captain Jazz leads by example and I wanted to share with you what I have observed with how he does this exceptionally well.

He doesn’t hide behind his rank – people follow him because of his natural leadership style

Have you ever asked this question or been asked?  As you can imagine, I have on many occasions, and my answer is always the same: Many attributes are used in tandem to become “great”, but for me, there is one major stand out factor:

I remember as a young man being trained in my early days in the RAF by quite a few instructors who were responsible for training my course mates and me with becoming operationally competent in our trade; no small task!  In those days, the lessons were predominantly based on the old acetate OHP slides and I distinctly remember that sinking feeling when the instructor would walk in with bundles of slides; in those days we got “Death by OHP” instead of the modern PowerPoint version we’ve all experienced these days.  I remember being fascinated with the fact that all of the Corporals that were training us had “Been there, done that, got the T-shirt” etc and would at every opportunity ask for them to tell us a story or experience related to the very dry facts,

Our head is full of habits and patterns; this is where it is most comfortable. How difficult is it to create new habits, sometimes very hard so we choose not to do this? Pushing yourself to step out of your comfort zone is hard, forcing a new pattern is hard but you can always do it if you choose to do it.

Sometimes a coach can create that change for you by guiding a new habit, a change in the way that you think. We as human beings are very set in our ways, and the brain does not like change unless we force that habit in, a habit of enjoying a change. What a fantastic difference in the way you can think if you choose to. We often tell ourselves we can’t do things, sometimes the way to deal with that is to do what you fear most first; ensure you force that habit in.  The tasks of the day; do we tend to leave the one we don’t want to do till later, how about doing it first? Enjoy the feeling of completeness and the fact you dealt with it, force this new habit in yourself.

You can conquer